Sebring (Unfinished Heroes #5)(5)

I had no time to ponder this oft-pondered thought.

Dad was shouting.

And he had a gun. A gun he was aiming at Green.

In other words, the situation was critical.

“Dad—” I called, moving into the room, but abruptly stopping and unable to fight back the wince and twist of my head when the gun went off, the loud sound cracking through the room.

Green shouted in agony and dropped to one knee.

Dad rounded the desk and advanced on his soldier, gun still raised.

“You tell me that shit?” he screamed. “You talk to your king that way?”

God, I hated that king business.

My grandfather started that too.

“Jesus, f*ck, Jesus, f*ck,” Green chanted, still down on a knee, one hand to his wound, blood oozing between his fingers. He tilted his head back and scowled at my father. “What the f*ck’s the matter with you? You shot me!”

“You f*ckin’ turd! You do!” Dad shouted. “You talk to your king that way!”

I turned to Gill who was standing in the door.

“Call Dr. Baldwin,” I ordered.

“Liv, Baldy’s not our biggest fan,” Tommy muttered under his breath behind me.

I nodded slightly, eyes still on Gill, knowing that but forgetting at this dramatic juncture that my father had alienated Baldwin some months ago. “Tell him I requested his attention personally.”

Gill nodded back and disappeared.

I cast my gaze over my shoulder to Tommy. “Get some towels.”

“Olivia, you do not need to be here,” Dad stated, and I looked to him.

“Dad—” I started.

He swung the gun my way.

Tommy, who had been moving toward my father’s bathroom, stopped and moved back, positioning in front of me so I still could see my father but Tommy’s body was mostly shielding mine.

God. Tommy.

I watched Dad’s eyes shift to Tommy before I watched his mouth curl.

“Take a bullet for her, yeah?” Dad asked derisively.

Tommy had been playing the game a long time. But he’d also been taught a lesson he had no choice but to learn.

He knew the right answer.

“She’s yours, so yeah.”

Dad stuck his nose up in the air, sniffed his approval at that response, then lowered the gun.

He glared at Tommy. He glared at me. Finally, he turned to Green.

I tensed.

“I f*ckin’ see you again and you still aren’t doin’ your job, I won’t aim at your leg. You hear me?”

I fought a sigh.

I saw Green’s teeth go to his lip and I knew exactly what he intended to say. I was pleased he managed to beat back the urge and instead fell to his hip and put both hands to his wound.

Dad stalked my way. “Get his ass outta here, Olivia. Get him producing.” He indicated Green behind him with a swing of his gun. “And clean this shit up.”

With that, he walked out the door.

“Towels, Tommy,” I reminded him quietly.

He jerked his head and moved to Dad’s bathroom.

I moved quickly to Green, crouched and dropped forward on my knees.

“We’ll get you to Dr. Baldwin. He’ll sort you out,” I murmured.

“I’m done, Liv,” Green clipped.

I drew in a careful breath and looked in his eyes.

“Fuckin’ *’s lost his goddamned mind,” Green went on. “Knew it already. He didn’t have to shoot me in the f*ckin’ leg to know it. But definitely know it now.”

“Eli,” I called him the name only I called him occasionally after Georgia christened him Green.

“Stuck it out for you, babe. Did what I could. But I gotta f*ckin’ eat,” he bit out.

“Georgia is working on—” I started, knowing it was a waste of breath.

Green was done and I didn’t blame him and not simply because my father had shot him in the leg.

“He calls me here to kneel before him and explain why I’m not moving product?” he cut me off to ask incredulously. “Then he loses his mind when I remind him I got no product to move because all his shit has dried up because he’s a f*ckin’ lunatic and no one wants to do business with him? And Liv, you gotta be a serious f*ckin’ lunatic for the lunatics in this business not to want to do business with you.”

“He’s under a lot of pressure,” I stated as Tommy approached, squatted close and pressed a clean towel to Green’s leg.

“Yeah, Liv, he is. That is not lost on me. That isn’t lost on any of the f*ckin’ minions he treats like minions even though nearly two f*ckin’ decades ago, Leon Jackson cut off his balls and served them up. Vincent Shade ate his own balls and he did not grow those balls back. Leon bit it, his wife ruled his roost and dug your dad’s hole deeper. She got outta the game, Valenzuela stepped in. He never got his shit together to win his patch back.”

He shook his head impatiently but gave me no chance to reply. He kept talking.

“I am not tellin’ you shit you don’t know. Shit like the fact that Denver’s only got two real players left. Marcus Sloan, who acts like your dad doesn’t even exist, and Benito Valenzuela, who doesn’t bother f*ckin’ with your dad because he knows he’s a f*ckin’ joke. Hell, Seth Townsend’s still in prison and he’s got more pull on the street than your dad.”